In 2021, content marketing will dominate the real estate marketing landscape. High-quality, informative and interesting content will remain the best way to generate and nurture online leads and establish a strong digital presence. If you’re looking to take your real estate content marketing efforts up a notch, your journey starts here. This is why a real estate content marketing plan is so important.
According to Tech Client, 70% of consumers learn about a company through content rather than ads. In other words, content is the evergreen lead generation tool for agents marketing their listings online.
Here’s a recap of the best way to put your content creation process on a fast track.
1) Research keywords
You may already know that the best way to make your content get found by people and search engines is to optimize it for SEO. SEO, or search engine optimization, is an essential part of real estate content creation and optimization.
Before producing any piece of content, you need to research your keywords. Think about who you want to target in your post. Put down a list of key queries your audience is likely to be searching for online and type them into search tools. Start with generic phrases, then narrow your list down to long-tail keywords (which are long, specific phrases).
If you target a few niches, for example retirees and investors, you’ll need to research your keywords for both niches separately.
Up until now, the best tool for free keyword research was the Google Keyword Planner. However, because of the recent update, monthly search volume data is now unavailable to users who aren’t running a Google AdWords campaigns. That leaves you pretty much in the dark about which keywords are the most popular ones and how you can best use them on your real estate website.
So you’ve got two options:
- If you’re running a Google ads campaign, the monthly search volumes are available to you anytime so no worries. If you’re not, you might want to consider setting up a small campaign if you can spare the budget.
- Get monthly search volumes with tools like keywordtool.io. Their paid packages let you dig up the search volumes for any of your keywords.
P.S. Extra point if you compile a list of long-tail keywords and use them in your blog posts and landing pages. You can use free tools like keywordtool.io, ubersuggest.io or Google autosuggest for this.
[Related post: Get on the Map: 21 Brilliant Ways to Master Local Real Estate SEO]
2) Write a blog post
Once you have your keywords and understand which queries will help your reach your audience, write you blog post or guest blog post. Real estate blogs should focus on locally relevant info showcasing how fabulous the area is as well as homeowners’ advice and market updates.
Don’t worry if you’re not sure what to write about. Here are two good posts to get your creative juices flowing:
- 7 Types of Real Estate SEO Content That Make an Exceptional Blog
- 40+ Winning Real Estate Blog Ideas for Agents
In a nutshell, especially good posts to focus on are:
- buyer questions;
- seller questions;
- FAQs;
- everything and anything about the local community;
- weekly/monthly market updates;
- some financial education like how to price a home, how to stage a home or what type of mortgage to choose.
Information like this is helpful and interesting to your target audience as it gives answers to their most pressing questions. At the same time, it makes you seen as a local go-to expert which is essential for your brand image. The most important thing is to write with your audience in mind. First and foremost, craft content for people, not search engines. The value of the information goes first, optimizing it for SEO goes second.
Lastly, don’t forget to include a few images to your post and craft a great headline to make your content more eye-catching.
3) Optimize your blog post for SEO
When it comes to blog post SEO, it’s best to have a checklist so you won’t miss out on important things:
That’s about all you need to do. Make sure to optimize each post you write.
4) Be consistent with internal linking
Real estate SEO is a long-term game. It takes time for search engine to index your pages and posts and rank you higher in search results. One surefire way to speed things up a little is to get serious about internal linking.
The whole thing is very simple. Whenever you publish a new post, make sure to link the previous posts (relevant ones) to this new one. Make a list of your most important keywords and use them as anchor text throughout your blog. Linking is one of the core SEO techniques so be sure to use it consistently.
[Related post: SEO for Real Estate: a Definitive Guide to Local Link Building]
5) Promote your post on social media
One of the best places to promote your latest blog post is social media. Post an update on all of your social media profiles with a link to the blog post. You can also join relevant social media groups, e.g. on Facebook or LinkedIn, and share your content there provided the group rules allow for it.
To make things faster and more effective, use tools like Hootsuite or Buffer to:
- schedule and automate your social media posting;
- monitor hashtags and brand mentions;
- streamline conversations with prospects and customers and access everything from one platform.
Finally, time wise. Here’s some great research on the best times to post on social media and Instagram.
[Related post: 10 Real Estate Growth Hacking Ideas to Inspire Your Team]
6) Send out an email newsletter
In the year ahead, email marketing is going to be a big deal. It is estimated there will be 4.3 billion email accounts by the end of 2016. Moreover, email is 40 times more effective in generating new leads than social media and secures 79% organic reach as opposed to 1% organic reach via social media.
This post gives a good reasoning why you should incorporate email marketing asap: Email vs. Social Media: What’s the Ultimate Real Estate Marketing Channel.
Set up a drip marketing campaigns (via your real estate CRM or email marketing software like MailChimp) to send out an email with your latest blog posts to your contact database. This is a great way to stay in touch and an intelligent follow up that keeps people in your center of influence, even if you haven’t talked with them personally for months. Make sure to craft a nice email template, with proper headings, uncluttered design and links to your website and social media profiles.
Lastly, check out your email analytics to improve your future campaigns. Open and click rates, the best times to send, the headline that got you most opens – each metric is important.
What’s next?
That’s about all you need to know to create quality and high-ranking real estate content. This is a basic roadmap to get started quickly and lay the groundwork for a great real estate content creation process.
While content marketing costs 62% less than advertising, it generates three times as many leads. This should give you an idea of where the market opportunity for an aspiring agent lies today.
